A little Chrysoprase, a little Australia

DDancer

Bronze Member
Mar 25, 2014
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Traveling US to work
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Current Equinox 600
Past Whites DFX Garret GTI 2500 and others
Prospecting Minelab GPZ 7000
Past SD 2100 GP 3000 (retired)
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Well I got back from my walk about in Australia a bit ago now. The prospect this year didn't go so well for the gold but I did pick up a few other goodies to share. One of my bucket items was Chrysoprase and I knew it occurred near the area's I was prospecting in this year in West Australia. My mate pointed me in the direction that he and his wife had come across the stone years ago~ alas I did not find that spot~ and with a few days of driving the fence lines and walking the bush I finally found the indicators for it.
Chrysoprase being a green member of the Chalcedony group means ya look for chalcedony :) Its not uncommon to find in the gold fields but the translucent and blue varieties are good indicators for the green.
minerals (7).jpg
Some times called white chrysoprase by the locals (above image) or blue chrysoprase, due to dark inclusions of dendrites that I could not image well, (below image)
minerals (13).jpg
Are what I looked for. After that it was just fossiking around looking for green.
I stopped in an interesting area where someone had at one point in time made a small pile of this material next to an old track and decided to make camp. Here are some of the rocks I pulled outta the pile, as well as some of the low grade chrysoprase I picked up the next day and other material from a few stops along the way:
minerals (1).jpg

While walking around to pick the best spot to set up for the night I came across a small piece of stone with just a fleck of the green I was looking for in it. This made me quite happy :) Unfortunate though it was to small for me to get an image of but I can show you the evening colors at camp :
Camp photo's 2 (2).jpg

The next morning I set about walking the hillside with my nose to the ground looking for a little more green. I was finally rewarded with some low grade chrysoprase and my prize bit of deep green layered in the host rock :
minerals (5).jpg

I only spent the day there as I had resupply and other obligations back in town to attend but for only a day I got something I came for and other interesting bits as well during the trip. Oh and I did find gold but thats another story and kinda sad this year.
Mulg gld (18).jpg

Hope you enjoy.
DD
 

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Cool! Welcome back. Glad you got to find at least a little of what you wanted to.
So the deeper the green the higher the grade?
So much fun to get to hunt somewhere different.
Looking forward to hearing and seeing more of your adventure.
BTW not all your attachments came through, hope you post them again, would like to see them
 

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Dark emerald green and translucent chrysoprase are the most valuable Aurora. I think I fixed the post~ hard to tell as I thought I'd fixed it twice already.
 

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That did it, they all show up now.
What are those top right and lower left in image 5?
And that burgundy one in upper right image 3.
Pretty nice gold specimen you're showing us there.

Oh and beautiful sunset.

More please.
 

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Aurora, I edited the size of all the photo's so its probably a bit difficult to magnify them much but all of them are chalcedony with or without green coloration. Raw stones. The exceptions, not really pictured as I'm deliberating another post with them, are in picture 5 at the extreme top right and lower bottom left. Opalite, right, and milky quartz crystals *impacted* with a nice glaze of limonite.
Here is one I did not picture. Its a nice layering of milky white chalcedony, clear/translucent chalcedony on a base of brown jasper. The center stone:
minerals (9).jpg

Glad you like it Occultus :)
 

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